News

Looking Back: Winter 2010

Author: Kathryn Kirkland

Posted: February 1, 2010

Call for 1970 memories

In May 1970, student protests against the Vietnam War and the killing of students at Kent State closed the campus and set PSU students against each other and the city. Events escalated into a bloody confrontation between students and the local police. What are your memories of that time? Please contact Kathryn Kirkland, editor of Portland State Magazine, at psumag@pdx.edu or 503-725-4451.

The neighborhood school

I GREW UP in the old South Portland neighborhood. There are a small and diminishing number of us left who attended elementary school at Shattuck, Failing, or St. Lawrence Parochial, and high school at Lincoln. Urban renewal and Portland State had a huge impact on the neighborhood.

Like many other Portland State graduates of that era, I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate from high school much less college. I might not have gone to college except for the opportunity to live at home and walk to school. Also, being One-A with the draft board, it seemed like a great idea. I had the $65 to pay the first quarter tuition and enough for books.

Five years and three major changes later, I graduated. I landed a good job and was lucky enough to do well, raise a fine family, have a great career, and retire comfortably. I am an associate professor emeritus with Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry. It turns out the affordability and convenience of Portland State paid me great dividends.

I now live in Flagstaff, Arizona, where my wife, Marjorie MBA '87, is chair of the Northern Arizona University Dental Hygiene program. All of my children are either in college or have graduated, and we intend to carry on that family tradition.

When I return to Portland, I always visit my old neighborhood: the Park Blocks and the PSU campus.

[captions] The South Portland neighborhood was whittled away by urban renewal and campus construction, including Cramer Hall (right) on Mill Street in 1957.